Dario Voltolini: Luci

Nel laboratorio di genetica al terzo piano della Clinica universitaria le luci sono spente. Le finestre danno sul parco. La luna rende nitide le sagome degli alberi con­tro il cielo notturno. Al lato opposto dell'edificio, sullo stesso piano del laboratorio in fondo a un lungo corri­doio, il reparto di rianimazione occupa due ampie sale e tre locali più piccoli connessi. Le luci sono accese. Dall'autostrada che passa oltre il fiume si possono ve­dere in controluce medici e infermieri muoversi, le loro ombre sulle finestre smerigliate e sigillate. Sulla porta d'ingresso del laboratorio di genetica c'è una targhetta con quattro nomi: G. Saliceti, A. Vasari, A. Thompson e S. Pizzi. La porta della rianimazione è una doppia ve­trata, senza etichette. All'interno, nella seconda sala grande, su di un letto, privo di conoscenza, Andrea Va­sari muove solo il torace, per respirare. I tracciati della sua attività cerebrale scorrono su di un monitor. L'atti­vità è intensa.

—    Sogna — deduce un'infermiera, mentre inietta un liquido nella soluzione fisiologica che pende dal tre­spolo accanto al letto.

—    Però non dorme — commenta Jean-Luc Volatier, anestesiologo, rivolgendosi a Sergio Pizzi.

—    E come lo chiamiamo, se non sonno? — doman­da Pizzi con un tono sprezzante.

—    Chiamalo come vuoi. Ti ricordo però che dal son-

ci si sveglia, mentre qui abbiamo provato ogni tipo di stimolo e non è successo niente. Intendo dire: niente di evidente nei tracciati. Tu che sei intelligente, cosa ne pensi?

—  Oh, io sono solo un genetista...

Enrique Anderson Imbert: Espiral

Regresé a casa en la madrugada, cayéndome de sueño. Al entrar, todo obscuro. Para no despertar a nadie avancé de puntillas y llegué a la escalera de caracol que conducía a mi cuarto. Apenas puse el pie en el primer escalón dudé de si ésa era mi casa o una casa idéntica a la mía. Y mientras subía temí que otro muchacho, igual a mí, estuviera durmiendo en mi cuarto y acaso soñándome en el acto mismo de subir por la escalera de caracol. Di la última vuelta, abrí la puerta y allí estaba él, o yo, todo iluminado de Luna, sentado en la cama, con los ojos bien abiertos. Nos quedamos un instante mirándonos de hito en hito. Nos sonreímos. Sentí que la sonrisa de él era la que también me pesaba en la boca: como en un espejo, uno de los dos era falaz. «¿Quién sueña con quién?», exclamó uno de nosotros, o quizá ambos simultáneamente. En ese momento oímos ruidos de pasos en la escalera de caracol: de un salto nos metimos uno en otro y así fundidos nos pusimos a soñar al que venía subiendo, que era yo otra vez.

Edmond Hamilton: The Monster-God of Mamurth

Out of the desert night he came to us, stumbling into our little circle of firelight and collapsing at once. Mitchell and I sprang to our feet with startled exclamations, for men who travel alone and on foot are a strange sight in the deserts of North Africa.

For the first few minutes that we worked over him I thought he would die at once, but gradually we brought him back to consciousness. While Mitchell held a cup of water to his cracked lips I looked him over and saw that he was too far gone to live much longer. His clothes were in rags, and his hands and knees literally flayed, from crawling over the sands, I judged. So when he motioned feebly for more water, I gave it to him, knowing that in any case his time was short. Soon he could talk, in a dead, croaking voice.

"I'm alone," he told us, in answer to our first question; "no more out there to look for. What are you two—traders? I thought so. No I'm an archeologist. A digger-up of the past." His voice broke for a moment. "It's not always good to dig up dead secrets. There are ionic things the past should be allowed to hide."

Alfonso Castelao: Un ollo de vidro. Memorias d'un esquelete

Leutor:

Certo día fitoume unha vaca. ¿Que coidará de min?, pensei eu; e naquel intre a vaca baixou a testa e sigueu comendo na herba. Agora xa sei que a vaca somentes dixo:

—Bo, total un home con anteollos.

E ó mellor eu non son máis que o que coidou a vaca. Velaí a ledicia de pensar que cando a miña calivera estea ó descuberto xa non poderá xuzgarme ningunha vaca.

A morte non me arrepía e o mal que desexo ó meu nemigo é que viva até sobrevivirse.

Eu son dos que estruchan a cara pra apalpa-la propia calivera e non fuxo dos cimeterios endexamais.

Tanto é así que teño un amigo enterrador nun cimeterio de cibdade. Iste meu amigo non é, de certo, amigo meu; é somentes un ouxeto de esperencia, un coelliño de Indias. Un enterrador sabe sempre moitas cousas e cóntaas con humorismo. Un enterrador de cibdade que dispe e descalza ós mortos pra surti-las tendas de roupa vella, ten de sere home que lle cómpre a un humorista. Un enterrador que saca boa soldada co ouro dos dentes das caliveras tiña de sere meu amigo.

Emilia Pardo Bazán: El conjuro

Emilia Pardo Bazán by Joaquín Vaamonde Cornide

El pensador oyó sonar pausadamente, cayendo del alto reloj inglés que coronaban estatuitas de bronce, las doce de la noche del último día del año. Después de cada campanada, la caja sonora y seca del reloj quedaba vibrando como si se estremeciese de terror misterioso.

Se levantó el pensador de su antiguo sillón de cuero, bruñido por el roce de sus espaldas y brazos durante luengas jornadas estudiosas y solitarias, y, como quien adopta definitiva resolución, se acercó a la chimenea encendida. O entonces o nunca era la ocasión favorable para el conjuro.

Descolgó de una panoplia una espada que conservaba en la ranura el óxido producido por la sangre bebida antaño en riñas y batallas, y con ella describió, frente a la chimenea y alejándose de ella lo suficiente, un pantaclo, en el cual quedó incluso. Chispezuelas de fuego brotaban de la punta de la tizona, y la superficie del piso apareció como carbonizada allí donde se inscribió el cerco mágico, alrededor del osado que se atrevía a practicar el rito de brujería, ya olvidado casi. Mientras trazaba el círculo, murmuraba las palabras cabalísticas.

Una figura alta y sombría pareció surgir de la chimenea, y fue adelantándose hacia el invocador, sin ruido de pasos, con el avance mudo de las sombras.

Luis Bermer: Mañana lloverá

La última clase es siempre la peor. El cansancio acumulado durante la mañana finalmente vence nuestras fuerzas y nos oprime contra los pupitres. Hoy ha sido otro día vacío de significados, tal vez porque el gran hueco que deja el autoengaño al desvanecerse no puede ser ocupado por las pasajeras afectividades cotidianas.

El profesor expone en voz alta su interesante monólogo sobre la lógica kantiana. Al igual que los escritores, los filósofos son seres curiosamente extraños. Todos parecen escandalizarse ante la simplicidad del monótono ciclo de la vida y, para evitar la desesperación, dedican su tiempo a la creación de posibilidades razonables, mundos paralelos, complejas interconexiones conceptuales de difícil comprensión, realidades no acontecidas y toda una extensa gama de metafísicas ridículamente humanas; como si lo que es pudiera adentrarse un poquito en lo que jamás podrá llegar a ser. Aquel que no reconoce sus límites está irremisiblemente condenado a chocar contra ellos, y los ahogados bufidos de la clase parecen confirmar lo que pienso.

Robert E. Howard: The Dream Snake

The night was strangely still. As we sat upon the wide veranda, gazing out over the broad, shadowy lawns, the silence of the hour entered our spirits and for a long while no one spoke.

Then far across the dim mountains that fringed the eastern skyline, a faint haze began to glow, and presently a great golden moon came up, making a ghostly radiance over the land and etching boldly the dark clumps of shadows that were trees. A light breeze came whispering out of the east, and the unmowed grass swayed before it in long, sinuous waves, dimly visible in the moonlight; and from among the group upon the veranda there came a swift gasp, a sharp intake of breath that caused us all to turn and gaze.

Faming was leaning forward, clutching the arms of his chair, his face strange and pallid in the spectral light; a thin trickle of blood seeping from the lip in which he had set his teeth. Amazed, we looked at him, and suddenly he jerked about with a short, snarling laugh.

"There's no need of gawking at me like a flock of sheep!" he said irritably and stopped short. We sat bewildered, scarcely knowing what sort of reply to make, and suddenly he burst out again.

Stanton A. Coblentz: The Round Tower

I

Of all the shocking and macabre experiences of my life, the one that I shall longest remember occurred a few years ago in Paris.

Like hundreds of other young Americans, I was then an art student in the French metropolis. Having been there several years, I had acquired a fair speaking knowledge of the language, as well as an acquaintance with many odd nooks and corners of the city, which I used to visit for my own amusement. I did not foresee that one of my strolls of discovery through the winding ancient streets was to involve me in a dread adventure.

One rather hot and sultry August evening, just as twilight was softening the hard stone outlines of the buildings, I was making a random pilgrimage through an old part of the city. I did not know just where I was; but suddenly I found myself in a district I did not remember ever having seen before. Emerging from the defile of a crazy twisted alley, I found myself in a large stone court opposite a grim but imposing edifice.

Four or five stories high, it looked like the typical medieval fortress. Each of its four corners was featured by a round tower which, with its mere slits of windows and its pointed spear-sharp peak, might have come straight from the Middle Ages. The central structure also rose to a sharp spire, surmounting all the others; its meagre windows, not quite so narrow as those of the towers, were crossed by iron bars on the two lower floors. But what most surprised me were the three successive rows of stone ramparts, each higher than the one before it, which separated me from the castle; and the musket-bearing sentries that stood in front.

Javier de Navascués: Muertos

Cuando los muertos se van haciendo viejos, tosen con más frecuencia, gruñen en medio del silencio, tienen un dolor en cada costado de la semana y se les cae el pelo a cinco milímetros por segundo. Pero lo peor de todo es que ya han perdido la ilusión de terminar aquello que nunca llegaron a hacer o de aquello otro que siempre aspiraron a empezar algún día. Ya les da igual no acabar el maldito Quijote, ni se molestan en disfrutar de una pieza desconocida de Vivaldi ni sienten el menor interés en escuchar el rumor del aire en un atardecer de octubre. Para cuando llegan a ese triste estado, los muertos se mueren definitivamente y para siempre.

Manly Wade Wellman: O Ugly Bird!

I swear I'm licked before I start, trying to tell you all what Mr. Onselm looked like. Words give out—for instance, you're frozen to death for fit words to tell the favor of the girl you love. And Mr. Onselm and I pure poison hated each other. That's how love and hate are alike.

He was what country folks call a low man, more than calling him short or small; a low man is low otherwise than by inches. Mr. Onselm's shoulders didn't wide out as far as his big ears, and they sank and sagged. His thin legs bowed in at the knee and out at the shank, like two sickles point to point. On his carrot-thin neck, his head looked like a swollen pale gourd. Thin, moss-gray hair. Loose mouth, a bit open to show long, even teeth. Not much chin. The right eye squinted, mean and dark, while the hike of his brow twitched the left one wide. His good clothes fitted his mean body like they were cut to it. Those good clothes were almost as much out of match to the rest of him as his long, soft, pink hands, the hands of a man who never had to work a tap.

You see what I mean, I can't say how he looked, only he was hateful.

Sergio Gaut vel Hartman - Miguel Dorelo: Un fuerte olor a podrido

Es terrible no sentirse limpio, se dijo. Lo obsesionaban todas las cosas que podían convertirlo en un ser inmundo: las bacterias, las liendres, los nanoseres microscópicos que las compañías de alimentos siembran en las viandas para controlar a las personas desde el comienzo de la liberalización productiva. Soy un descuidado montón de piezas indebidamente esterilizadas, casi cien kilos de materia contaminada; una criatura febril y sucia al mismo tiempo, no aguanto más los picores en el cuerpo, todos mis fluidos corporales sublevados, deslizándose por mi carne, empapándome hasta los huesos, esta repugnante sensación de estar inmerso en un gran tonel lleno de estiércol.

Y sobre todo me resulta totalmente imposible soportar este fuerte olor a podrido que ya invade todos y cada uno de los rincones de mi féretro.

Yo pedí expresamente ser cremado.

Y no me han hecho caso.

Lafcadio Hearn: Diplomacy

It had been ordered that the execution should take place in the garden of the yashiki. So the man was taken there, and made to kneel down in a wide sanded space crossed by a line of tobi-ishi, or stepping-stones, such as you may still see in Japanese landscape-gardens. His arms were bound behind him. Retainers brought water in buckets, and rice-bags filled with pebbles; and they packed the rice-bags round the kneeling man,-- so wedging him in that he could not move. The master came, and observed the arrangements. He found them satisfactory, and made no remarks.

Suddenly the condemned man cried out to him:--

"Honored Sir, the fault for which I have been doomed I did not wittingly commit. It was only my very great stupidity which caused the fault. Having been born stupid, by reason of my Karma, I could not always help making mistakes. But to kill a man for being stupid is wrong,-- and that wrong will be repaid. So surely as you kill me, so surely shall I be avenged; -- out of the resentment that you provoke will come the vengeance; and evil will be rendered for evil."...

If any person be killed while feeling strong resentment, the ghost of that person will be able to take vengeance upon the killer. This the samurai knew. He replied very gently,-- almost caressingly:--

Amado Nervo: Los que ignoran que están muertos

Los muertos — me había dicho varias veces mi amigo el viejecito espiritista, y por mi parte había encontrado, varias veces también, la misma observación en mis lecturas, — los muertos, señor mío, no saben que se han muerto.

No lo saben sino después de cierto tiempo, cuando un espíritu caritativo se los dice, para

despegarlos definitivamente de las miserias de este mundo.

Generalmente se creen aún enfermos de la enfermedad de que murieron; se quejan, piden medicinas... Están como en una especie de adormecimiento, de bruma, de los cuales va desprendiéndose poco a poco la divina crisálida del alma.

Los menos puros, los que han muerto más apegados a las cosas, vagan en derredor nuestro, presas de un desconcierto y de una desorientación por todo extremo angustiosos.

Sienten dolores, hambre, sed, exactamente como si vivieran, no de otra suerte que el amputado siente que posee y aun que le duele el miembro que se le segregó.

H. Russell Wakefield: Gost hunt

Well, listeners, this is Tony Weldon speaking. Here we are on the third of our series of Ghost Hunts. Let's hope it will be more successful than the other two. All our preparations have been made and now it is up to the spooks. My colleague tonight is Professor Mignon of Paris. He is the most celebrated investigator of psychic phenomena in the world and I am very proud to be his collaborator.

We are in a medium-sized, three-story Georgian house not far from London. We have chosen it for this reason: it has a truly terrible history. Since it was built, there are records of no less than thirty suicides in or from it and there may well have been more. There have been eight since 1893. Its builder and first occupant was a prosperous city merchant and a very bad hat, it appears: glutton, wine bibber and other undesirable things, including a very bad husband. His wife stood his cruelties and infidelities as long as she could and then hanged herself in the powder closet belonging to the biggest bedroom on the second floor, so initiating a horrible sequence.